Biffle, who missed out on this year’s Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship, had a fast lap at 174.887 mph.

The Roush Fenway Racing driver has won twice at Kansas but Friday’s pole is his first at the 1.5-mile tri-oval. It is his second pole of the season, the first coming at Michigan.

The pole caught Biffle off guard.

“Well, it was a really good lap,” Biffle said. “I think what I really would rather talk about is how slow we were when we unloaded off the truck. It was quite amazing. We were 35th or 37th when we unloaded off the truck today. Fifteen or 20 guys in race trim were way faster than we were. I think that says something about the team. How we started there and ended up where we are at right now. How we worked on the car and didn’t lose our patience, confidence and focus on getting the car to go. We made about six qualifying runs and the last one was pretty dang good and they changed a bunch more stuff on it for the real one. The car was really good.”

Carl Edwards, Biffle’s teammate and the driver tied for the points lead, was second fastest in qualifying.

Third was Kyle Busch of Joe Gibbs Racing.

Rounding out the top five were a third Roush Fenway driver, Matt Kenseth, while Kasey Kahne of Red Bull Racing, was fifth.